The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-11-06
MRS. LANGTRY's SUCCESS.
The Way She Manages to Keep up
Her Popularity.

Her Popularity.
NEW YORK, Nov. Sit is curious fact
that of the thousands who annually flock to
lay their tribute of admiration and their
81 80 at the feet of Mrs. Langtry in New
York. not l per cent. have succeeded in
| truly Analysing her continued popularity.
! Ask any one of a dozen people you may
meet during the day or evening, and it is al.
most safe bet that their replies will cor
respond within the sixteenth of an inch.
They will tell you three parts of her draw
ing power consist of the fascination
which her beauty has for men aud one
part in her recently developed histrionic
talent
Those who tell YOU are wrong. If they
| do not live in New York the error is natural
and pardonable, but in New York it is in
| excasable. Here is her home, and here she
| appears as the woman quite as prominently
| as the actress Her life is no mystery to
her neighbors, and the true key to her
wearing quality" is her success with
women. In face of the notorious feminine
Jealousy of personal beauty in their own sex
except such as they may find in the mir
| ror-this assertion may seen absurd. But Il
is true, nevertheless.
Follow Mrs. Langtry on an afternoons
shopping tour and see if | am not right.
GIittTN UllllliltI on Eli IN
avenue (she gets all her hats at one place..
Her carriage, with the awfullv pompols
English coachman on the box and the
| awfully diminutive but equally digni6e1
and bebuttoned footman at the door, stands
at the curb. The half dozen women OF
fashion III toe place glance around as she
appears. With perfect ease she passes among
them and to an attendant says in q converse
tional tone
Tell Miss - that Mrs Langtry is here,
please
This lady appears and is greeted with q
cordiality almost like that of sister. But
no gush. Then the work of choosing two or
three becoming hats begins. No Impotence,
no disgust, no hauteur is visible. With a
skill which is peculiarly her own she will
! succeed, before leaving the store, in getting
the frank opinion of every lady present
on each hat considered before making de-
cision-
This is all done in the most offhand and
polite manner possible, as though she should
say;
and know each others weaknesses In the
matter of personal adornment. OF course
we are not acquainted, but it's all in
formal, don't you know-iust like being on
shipboard-so tell me the truth"
Of course this isn't what she says with her
tongue, but with her manner. With a
monosyllabic appeal she draws out each
without apparently intending to do any
thing of the sort, When she has finished sEe
sits comfortably down upon a lounge ard
has a nice little fivemimute conversation
with the head of the concern.
Then with smile she re-entels her car
riage and is gone, and every lady in the
place, including the employees, goes home
and declares at dinner that Mrs. Langley is
the most charming woman she mas ever met,
despite the scandal mongers.
And then, you know. each woman feels
that she had hand in the purchase of those
hats, and she insists on going to the thea
tire the very next evening to sea if Lang
try wears one of them.
This programme and this effect is repro
duced at the Lily's dressmaker's, at her shoe
makers and at all her shopping points-and
nearly all her shopping is done in New York
nowadays.
Her secret is this: She appreciates fully
her own beauty and all that it is worth, and
will freely discuss it in seeking garments
which sets it off-but this she does in such a
confidential yet frank manner as to disarm
an enemy at one stroke.
An illustration of this occurred within a
few feet Of me the other day:
do you know" said Mrs. Langtry, "why
some of my photographs in profile are so
pretty while others are notl Well, | will
solve the riddle for you. Millais, the pain
ter, was frank enough to tell me in London
once that while one side of my face was
beautiful the other, he thought, narrowly
escaped being ugly. suppose other peo-
pie have thought so, too, but they never
told me-"
1t isn't every pretty woman who is pretty
enough to talk that way.
G. Fl FLEMING